For us, life had become hell again — worse than anything we had known before. The guards now had only one goal: to break us, divide us, prevent us from uniting again.
As soon as we tried to help one of our own, blows rained down. Brutal. Methodical. They beat us until we bled, without restraint. Talking? Even looking too closely at each other? It had become a crime.
Then they imposed collars. Devices that violently electrified us at the slightest contact, at the slightest whisper. Every attempt at brotherhood was punished. Solidarity had become a condemnation.
Months passed. Isolation did its work. We were alone again. Cut off from one another. Even my mother… I was no longer allowed to see her. That bond was torn from me too.
Our new task was to work in the forest, carrying wood from sunrise to sunset. In silence. Heads down. Empty stares. As if we had become strangers. Automatons.
One day, while I was gathering branches, my mind distant, my back bent under the weight of wood and despair, I spotted Sami in the distance. He was making discreet signs, pointing to his neck.
His collar was gone.
My heart skipped a beat.
I slipped quietly from the ranks to join him, shielded from view.
— How did you do it? I asked quietly, eyes fixed on his neck.
— It was easy, he replied with a half smile. I killed a guard. Took the key.
I froze. The silence tightened between us. He had really done it. Killed him. It was recent. Too recent. The news hadn't reached the others yet.
But it would.
— You have to run, Sami. Now. If they find you, they'll kill you.
He looked at me intensely. Then, without another word, he turned and ran into the forest, disappearing among the trees.
Moments later, an alarm blared throughout the camp. Piercing. Panic. I took my place among the ranks as if nothing was wrong, my heart pounding wildly.
The guards gathered us immediately. They shouted, interrogating each of us, one by one:
— Where is your friend? Where has he gone?
No one spoke. Not a word. Even those who disliked him fell silent. Maybe out of fear, maybe respect.
But this silence drove them mad.
To break this mute unity, they seized a young girl at random. A child. They dragged her before us and began to torture her. There. Before our eyes.
They crushed her ribs. We heard the bones crack. Her blood flowed over the hard earth. She screamed. She choked.
I shivered. But it wasn't fear.
It was rage.
And I was not alone.
Something exploded that day. Something instinctive. An ancient, primal fire. A silent scream turned storm.
The slaves threw themselves at the guards. Stones, tools, shouts — a brutal, desperate, disorganized revolt… but real.
The guards panicked. They opened fire. Stray bullets, bodies falling everywhere. Blood. Everywhere. Children. Women. Friends.
When the dust settled, all was calm. Silent. Stifling.
The toll?
17 guards killed. 34 wounded on our side. But… 123 dead among us. 700 wounded. Me included.
The next day, as if nothing had happened, we were sent back to work. Exhausted. Maimed. Broken.
A few days later, they caught Sami.
I saw him pass, held by four guards, chained, bleeding. He barely walked. His body was covered with marks, burns, lacerations. He had been tortured relentlessly.
When our eyes met, he gave me one last trembling smile, his eyes filled with tears.
— Farewell, my friend…
I couldn't say a word.
And he disappeared.
I never saw him again.
It was over.
I was fifteen. Fifteen long years surviving, enduring, silencing myself.
My gaze was empty. Nothing shone within me anymore. I had lost hope long ago. My body had hardened; my build was now enough for me to be transferred to groups of adult men — those assigned the hardest labor. I had become a tool, a beast of burden.
That night, they put me in a cage, chained from head to toe. Mizellla's father watched me through the bars, a cold, demented smile on his lips. To him, I was just merchandise. A product. A thing.
Night fell.
I dozed off, back against the icy iron, waiting for morning like one waits for a sentence. A guard sat nearby, slumped in a chair, supposed to watch over me. He had fallen asleep, drunk or just weary.
Then… something happened. A discreet figure slipped into the shadows. Silent. Determined.
It was her. Mizellla.
She had changed. She was fifteen too, but her gaze carried a strange maturity. A flame shone there. She was no longer the curious child of before.
I wanted to speak, but she put a finger to her lips and whispered:
— Be silent. Say nothing.
She inserted a key into the lock, popped the bolts one by one. The chains fell from my wrists, from my ankles.
— Except you, Kai… she said softly.
I froze. Why was she doing this? Why me? I didn't understand.
— Except you, I say! she repeated, this time more firmly, almost angrily.
A sharp noise broke the silence.
— Who's there?! the guard shouted, sitting up, eyes still bleary.
Mizellla grabbed my hand with a swift gesture.
— Run! Come with me!
Without thinking, I followed her. We ran through the courtyard, our steps muffled in the hard earth. A bullet whistled past us, narrowly missing our escape. The alarm sounded almost immediately, awakening the entire camp.
But we were already in the forest, swallowed by darkness, branches whipping our faces. Mizellla ran relentlessly, scratched arms, bruised skin, but she did not slow down. She truly wanted to save me. She fought for my freedom.
Voices shouted behind us. The guards had launched their pursuit, pounding the ground, calling, threatening. Their torches ripped through the darkness in places.
Suddenly, Mizellla stopped abruptly, panting.
— Kai… keep going without me. I'll slow you down. Go away! Run far! Be free!
But I couldn't. I approached her and hugged her, tears welling up in my eyes.
— Thank you for everything, Mizellla. Thank you…
She was speechless. Her cheeks reddened. A fragile moment amid the turmoil.
Then, without warning, I lifted her and put her on my shoulder like a sack.
— What are you doing, Kai?! she protested, panicked.
— You're coming with me. You're going to teach me what freedom is, Mizellla!
Silence. Then a shy smile stretched her lips.
— Alright then… run! First, run!!
And I ran. With all my strength. I ran all night, with her on my shoulder, fleeing this rotten world, this cursed village, this cage imposed on me.
At daybreak, exhausted, we were far away. Very far.
I collapsed to the ground, gasping, muscles on fire, throat dry.
Mizellla slowly stood, hair disheveled, arms scraped, but eyes clear.
— You are really strong physically, she said with a small laugh. Rest now. I think we're far enough for tonight.
She glanced around cautiously.
— But as soon as you recover, we'll move again. They can still find us here.
I had never known what the word "freedom" meant.
Not really. Not in the sense Mizellla gave it. For me, freedom had always been an empty word, a distant gleam in an endless sky. A mirage.
In my life, the light never fully passed through. I was brought a bowl of lukewarm porridge, always bland, sometimes cold at night with the others. I had learned to expect no more. To no longer desire. To no longer hope. That was survival: silencing dreams.
But she… she didn't want me to survive. She wanted me to live.
That morning, Mizellla had taken me near the river. The sun filtered through the leaves, gilding her hair too light to be real. She laughed. She laughed for no reason. A bird on a branch, a drop of water on my forehead, a branch I hadn't seen and nearly tripped on. And then she laughed also because I wasn't laughing.
— You don't have to walk like that, Kai, she said shaking her head. This isn't a guard's round. You can drag your feet a bit. Look!
And she started walking with an exaggeratedly casual step, arms behind her back, whistling off-key like a child imitating an adult. She pretended to limp, then to slip, then to fly. Ridiculous.
And beautiful.
I finally smiled. She pretended not to notice, but I felt she had.
We stayed there, by the water. She had brought two rudimentary fishing lines. I didn't even know how to hold such a thing. She had to teach me. It was a disaster. I cast too far. Not far enough. I pulled too soon. Too late. I felt nothing in my fingers. I was used to stone, iron, chains.
— You don't have to get everything right the first time, she murmured placing a hand on mine. Freedom is also the right to fail.
I looked into her eyes. She said that as if it were obvious. But for me, failure cost blows. Scars. Sometimes friends. She told me it cost… nothing.
The line twitched. I pulled too late.
She laughed. I laughed. A little.
She caught a fish. I caught none. She insisted we cook it together. "Cooking" — a word that sounded like an unreachable luxury.
— You'll see, she said, it's simple.
It was a lie. Everything was complicated. The fire, the spices she had brought, the movements. But she let me try. She let me fail. She let me do.
When I tasted the fish, I wanted to cry.
I had never tasted anything so good. It wasn't just the flavor — it was having participated. Getting my hands dirty. Choosing how much salt. Deciding.
She looked at me proudly.
— You did that, Kai. It was your hand that held the blade. It was your fire that cooked it.
I wanted to say something. But I just lowered my head. There was inside me a void I had never felt. A void that was not hunger, but regret. Regret for not having known this earlier.
Later, she made me a flower necklace.
She laughed at my furrowed brows, my lost expression. She put it around my neck like a sacred ritual.
— There, now you are a free man, she said solemnly.
— That's ridiculous, I whispered.
But I didn't take the necklace off.
In the evening, as the sky turned violet, she told me stories. Some invented, others maybe true. Stories where no one dies under blows, where fathers don't sell their sons, where walls are not made to imprison but to support a roof.
She fell asleep beside the fire, cheek on her folded arm, a blond lock falling on her parted lips. I stayed sitting for a long time watching her.
I didn't understand what she sought in me. Why she did all this. Why she taught me freedom when I didn't even know how to breathe without permission.
But I felt something stirring inside me. Something warm, fragile, alive.
She taught me to swim.
She made me sing, badly, but sing anyway.
She told me I had the right to think about tomorrow. That tomorrow wasn't necessarily a punishment. That it could be a gift.
Every day, she made a little joke. Often a bad one. She laughed before even reaching the punchline. She laughed for two. For her and for me. She told me laughter was like a seed you water. Even if it doesn't grow right away, it eventually breaks through the earth.
Maybe she was right.
I don't yet know if I am free. But I know that when I close my eyes, it's no longer darkness I see. It's the river. It's the grilled fish. It's the flower necklace.
It's Mizellla.
And her voice whispering to me:
"You can live, Kai. You have the right."